Monday, July 14, 2008

Weighing in on Off Shore Drilling

With the announcement that President Bush will allow off-shore drilling and Congress likely to continue blocking it, I wanted to post a couple comments about it.

I would be all for off-shore drilling and would probably support it. I recently heard that in the last 30 years there has been only one accident that produced any environmental damage. So from that perspective it is probably going to be OK. I doubt that it would negatively impact tourism on the coasts as the rigs have to be pretty far out.

It would be good to reduce our foreign oil consumption, as well as having a lower energy impact of transporting the oil. It would probably mean less money being exported from our country. It would hopefully mean more revenue from the leases for the government (assuming we don't give it away like we are doing in other areas).

I say I would probably support it, because I still have reservation about it. I very strongly feel that we as a country need to be investigating alternatives to oil. From that perspective the high oil prices have been very beneficial. If there was some way to allow the off-shore drilling, but still encouraging all the exciting work that is now being done in the face of the high oil prices, I would support it.

But as it stands I would probably support the position of denying OSD, because we need a new economy, one not based on oil.